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JazzCash financial services, and a growing base of mobile app users and 4G customers, accelerate Jazz’s shift from telco to digital operator.
Jazz banks on mobile money in digital services transformation
Jazz, the largest mobile network operator in Pakistan, is transforming into a digital services provider and its digital financial services unit JazzCash is showing the way. It has set the stage for an expanding suite of services that includes cloud, streaming and lifestyle apps. In an interview with TM Forum Inform, Murtaza Ali, President of JazzCash, discussed the impact on financial inclusion and plans for growth, as mobile financial services continue to be a core component of the operator’s digital service transformation.
Pakistan has historically been an “underbanked society” and JazzCash’s mission is to serve people who do not have formal bank accounts, which is around 40% of the adult population and mostly women, explained Ali, who began his mobile banking career in 2008 at Easypaisa (then owned by Telenor) and joined JazzCash in 2019.
JazzCash launched in 2012 (originally known as MobiCash) when the MNO created a joint venture with Waseela Bank, called Mobilink Microfinance Bank, to acquire a microfinance banking license. JazzCash is in effect the service provider and distribution partner for Mobilink bank based on a revenue-sharing model. This commercial setup is necessary because MNOs are not allowed to have banking licenses.
The first services allowed people to send money and receive funds using short codes from basic GSM and feature phones. Now the mobile money provider offers more financial services, including bill payment, loans, tap-to-pay, and insurance which are mostly accessed via the recently revamped JazzCash app. Most recently, the provider enabled customers to link their JazzCash debit cards to Google Wallet.
The value of total transactions in a year on the JazzCash platform is the equivalent to 9% of Pakistan’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), said Ali.
JazzCash had 48 million registered users and 19.7 million monthly active users, as of the end of December 2024. It has 122,000 active agents across the country and a retail network of 350,000 active merchants who use JazzCash.
The most popular services in terms of transaction volume are sending and receiving money, paying bills, digital loans, and topping up mobile phone accounts, which JazzCash offers for customers of Jazz and other mobile operators.
The high volume of transactions (around 9 million per day) has generated data that can be analyzed for insights into potential new service offerings, Ali explained.
“We have two sets of data: the telecom data that we always had [from the mobile network] and the financial services data. We can combine them and create offers to customers”, he said.
This is how JazzCash created its lending service two and a half years ago to offer micro loans to sole traders and small businesses. The loans can be as small as $30 or $40 for a taxi driver to buy petrol or for a chef to purchase ingredients for her home-cooking business, for example.
JazzCash processes more than 140,000 loans per day, which is “probably bigger than the entire financial services financial industry put together in Pakistan”, said Ali.
Mobile credit usage has surged recently in Pakistan. In 2024, 15% of customers used mobile money to take out a loan, up from just 3% in the previous year, according to the GSMA’s State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money 2025.
A machine learning algorithm identifies and whitelists customers who are eligible to receive and able to repay credit, which is the same technology used by M-PESA in Kenya. Since JazzCash started offering loans, it has produced credit histories for 10 million people who otherwise would not have financial records and would remain excluded from other banking services.
“Financial inclusion is not just about opening a bank account. It goes far beyond, and this is a philosophy we’ve taken to our heart,” said Ali.
For example, Ali said JazzCash is working with partners to be able to offer asset management options and savings schemes because there are few services available in the country.
The most popular investments by individuals in Pakistan are gold and land but most people do not have the resources to participate, he explained. JazzCash wants to fill that gap so that people can “really make money” by investing as little as $1 when they can.
JazzCash is also working with the national government to “digitize the economy”, which is predominantly cash-based and operating on an informal basis. The intent is to bring informal payments into the country’s tax system.
As JazzCash improves financial inclusion in Pakistan, it is also propelling Jazz’s transition to a digital service provider as part of as part of a transformation program launched by parent VEON Group four years ago, called DO1440, along with a newer AI strategy, named AI1440. The 1,440 figure is the number of minutes in a day, as the operator’s aim is to be a digital operator that engages customers every minute of the day.
Digital services accounted for 25% of Jazz’s total revenue in Q4 2024. Underpinning digital service usage is a 4G subscriber base of more than 50 million, which is 70% of Jazz’s total customers. As an indicator of digital take-up, 35% of the customer base subscribes to at least one other digital service or platform in addition to 4G.
This digital shift is also evident at JazzCash as 65% of monthly active users use the JazzCash app instead of short codes from feature phones.
“Jazz is shaping Pakistan’s digital future as a ServiceCo, moving beyond connectivity to drive financial inclusion, cloud solutions, and AI-powered services … We are building a connected, cashless, and customer-centric ecosystem,” said Jazz CEO Aamir Ibrahim, in a statement.
Jazz’s digital offerings span mobile money, insurance, lifestyle apps, streaming, and cloud:
The operator also plans to expand into healthcare and education services, as Developing Telecoms reported. Ibrahim told the publication in an interview that Jazz is developing an AI-powered healthcare app.
